High-flying Agenda - Economics

The post-baby boom generation, that quiet group of spoiled kids, must come to terms with the ugly faces of fiscal responsibility and economic realities. The question remains, are we up to task?

Unfortunately, our generation does seem to have a maturity problem.

We see our college peers going through the motions of studying, spectators to their own educations. Their parents pay for everything. They define success in dollar figures of annual salaries.

However, the post-baby boom generation is not comprised entirely of slothful dolts. Each year tens of thousands of us earn undergraduate and masters degrees from colleges and universities all over the country. Those of us with our eyes on the corporate world pursue our Masters of Business Administration degree.

MBA degrees unjustly receive quite a bit of bad publicity. Critics assert that the programs spew out a bunch of greedy, know-it-all kids who want to start out at the top of the corporate ladder, for a lot of money.

But for every one of us who have journeyed to Wall Street to become a junk bond millionaire, 99 of us have gone to normal middle management jobs in manufacturing or service organizations. We took to heart our professors' lectures about the advantages of Japanese inventory systems, planning in five-year increments instead of quarter to quarter and participating in a global economy.

Given time, we will assist American business back to its feet.

In the interim, we have some economic mandates for national policymakers.

We must allow other countries to have open trading opportunities in the United States, even if they do not reciprocate the offer. Regulating imports builds bad will with other nations, is inconsistent with our internal free market system, and is an excuse for American businesses to remain inefficient.

American manufacturers quickly point out the unfair advantages other countries have with cheap labor.

We post-baby boomers do not accept this argument. We have sen how the corporate Good-Ole-Boy Networks have led to poor decision making.

If the management of American manufacturers want a more equitable competitive vantage point, they can invest more in research and development, develop long range plans and cooperate more with labor.

Obviously we post-baby boomers harbor strong feelings about how corporate America needs to change to compete against strong global players.

However, many of us are equally concerned over the growing financial disparities between groups of individuals within and outside the United States.

So, Item 2 on the post-baby boom Economic Agenda deals with taxes. Specifically, they must be raised.

The War on Drugs requires financing. The primary and secondary educational systems are desperate for additional funding. A vicious and deadly cycle of inner city poverty must be broken. Internationally, $2.5 billion is needed to prevent 100,000 children from dying of illness and malnutrition in the 1990s.

The much heralded "peace dividend" will not pay for these things; we post-baby boomers will.

We have no choice, really. Like it or not, we will eventually agree to pay higher taxes.

Certainly we are not going to give our representatives unlimited opportunities to raise revenues at the expense of the average hardworking citizen. Look at Massachusetts.

On the other hand, we have no need for leadership that grimly adheres to a "Read my lips, no new taxes" policy while our fellow citizens are in want of food and clothing.

Our policy makers must be given the opportunity to openly discuss why taxes ought to be increased without fear of political ruin. And as citizens, we must understanding that "taxation," when applied fairly and justly, is not a dirty word.

For the sake of the citizens of our country, we will give more to Uncle Sam. Privately, however, we post-baby boomers will also assume the burden of saving the world's children.

Allowing thousands of children to die from easily preventable diseases and ailments is nothing short of unconscionable. We cannot permit such a horrific scourge to continue through our lifetimes.

We are a selfish generation called to a mission of selflessness.

* C. Joseph Cadle, a financial manager who lives in Newport News, is a graduate of Washington and Lee University and holds a master's degree from Duke University.